The point is not that all of dentistry is somehow getting worse. It is that dentists make bank by doing certain types of procedures, and the field of dentistry has little institutional control or coordination, so you do the math about which types of procedures happen to get done a lot.
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Once again, I’m glad to be living in a civilized country with socialized health care, including dentistry.
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The article actually mentions dental sealants as one of the few dental procedures that really has a scientifically proven benefit.
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Who, then, is the employer? The state? (And for avoidance of doubt, I do not discount that option, at all.)
(In UK, dentists are mostly private practices, even if they do NHS work at NHS rates - and increasingly few do.)
My Ex was a dental office manager for decades. One of the things I commonly saw was the least scrupulous dentists did whatever it took to quickly get to a point of owning their own practice. While ethical caring dentists stayed stuck as associates getting paid just a small fraction of the profit they generated. The best associates stood up for the patients and refused to do unnecessary work and got fired for it.
Her last employer was know as Dr Evil. I am not a violent or destructive person and don’t advocate such things but when I was stuck in his universe I came up with some pretty detailed plans on how to burn that fuckers house boat down and get away with it. My health improved when I stopped having to interact with that POS.
ETA
I played this a lot to keep my head above water.
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In our case it was literally to buy him more nitrous. When he could no longer hide it in the bookkeeping he started stealing it from the neighboring practice, and only then was eventually caught.
I asked and was told that it would last longer. I opted for ceramic because I like traveling in third world countries…
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My experience (in the UK in the 1980s) was a little different. The experienced dental surgeon removed my wisdom teeth and took out a few nerves for good measure. Decades later, half my jaw is still numb.
Evidently, nerve damage from wisdom tooth removal is not uncommon (everywhere, not just the UK).
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My point was that those earlier procedures (that have now proven to be so valuable) likely got the same kind of skepticism as the ones now (notably flouridation, which was seen as a communist plot). This is not to say that dentists don’t sometimes money-grub, but the wholesale condemnation is a bit rich.
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The reason I was quoted in this article was due in part to the reaction the author had from a story I’d written about dental insurance - “Why Dental Insurance Makes Good People Do Bad Things.” https://www.dentalbuzz.com/2018/01/10/why-dental-insurance-makes-good-people-do-bad-things/.
We all need to be smarter about dental care.
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Who are you arguing with? TFA does not describe a misunderstood crusader on the bleeding edge of dental practices. It is doubtful that a dentist who gave massive and unnecessary amounts of root canals, caps, and I&D procedures to his patients is moving the industry forward, and speaking for myself that’s the dentist I’m talking about in this thread.
Also, do you really believe there was ever a significant mainstream belief that fluoridation was a Communist plot?
Stale jokes aside, stupid ideas can have an astonishing reach. Just look at the current anti-vaccination nonsense. Fluoridation was a theme in the late 1950ies / early 1960ies.
I found this in a second-hand bookshop in Germany a couple of years ago and naturally had to have it.
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It is doubtful that a dentist who gave massive and unnecessary amounts of root canals, caps, and I&D procedures to his patients is moving the industry forward, and speaking for myself that’s the dentist I’m talking about in this thread
Also smacked in the article are dentists who emphasize flossing, fluoridation for adults, and using resins instead of metal fillings, so limiting it to the most extreme case you can find is cherry picking.
Also, do you really believe there was ever a significant mainstream belief that fluoridation was a Communist plot?
Depends on your definition of ‘mainstream’ of course, but communist plot idea was a powerful enough presence in American life in the 1950s that thousands of communities refused to fluoridate their waters.
Donald R. McNeil’s article America’s Longest War: The Fight over Fluoridation, 1950– in The Wilson Quarterly has a good history of the controversy.
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